Sandy Grant
28 January 2008
column
It tends to be that sort of country; normally either too hot and too dry or even, on now, rare occasions, too cold? Either no crops and no insects because there has been no rain or excellent crops and insects everywhere (ditotojane) because the rains have been good.
Or, other variations, relatively good road surfaces when there is no rain or potholes everywhere when there is. Or totally dry river beds one year or overflowing rivers the next. And so on. But in years when the rivers are in flood, the best place from which to view such a wonderful spectacle in the southern part of the country has to be the Phuthadikobo Museum in Mochudi. Over a long period, it has always surprised me that so few people seem to realise that this is so. Each year, when those floods arrive, I expect to find a line of vehicles making their way from Gaborone to enjoy this rare and very spectacular sight. But it doesn't happen either because there are no news reports so that people cannot know or, alternatively, they do know but have better things to do. Either way, the rivers in flood up and down the country have been a timely reminder that they are there, that they exist - because normally they are ignored and their tremendous importance, not least for tourism, overlooked. Who cites the Limpopo as such a resource? But let me now shift topics from the large to the small, from floods to those potholes, which in Gaborone have prompted the Mayor to state that many of the earlier roads are long past their sell-by-date and can no longer be repaired.
A few weeks earlier, the same point was made by Minister Duncan Mlazie about the Nata-Kazangula road which is in non-stop use by those huge trucks making their way from Johannesburg to the Congo. These trucks come to a virtual stop when reaching the ferry which can be little changed from the 1960s when it transported South African refugees and freedom fighters and the occasional Bedford truck and Landrover - and not much else. The changed political and economic situation in Southern Africa has created bottlenecks where none previously existed. The Kazungula crossing is one which is now causing real problems. The construction of the proposed new bridge is an enormous, hugely exciting, undertaking which will inevitably take time to bring about. But if it is planned as an isolated project, this bridge will remove none of the present problems.
The common sense assumption must be that both planners and politicians in the relevant countries are now far advanced in their thinking about the measures they recognise as necessary to upgrade - to standards required in, say twenty years time - the entire road network from Johannesburg, through Martins Drift, past Francistown, to Nata, Kazungula, the great bridge, Livingstone and onwards to the great cities and industrial and mining centres of Zambia and central Africa. But is this so? With commentators who are now reviewing his record finding it easier to identify President Festus Mogae's failings than his successes, I would suggest that in future years it will not be difficult to recognise that it was because of his involvement and leadership, not least, that a long ago dream is now in process of being turned into a reality.
Inevitably, major construction projects have long gestation periods, more so when three different governments are involved and the general public can have no idea - until archival records are made available for inspection - about the difficulties and obstacles that have had to be overcome in the earlier planning stages. But inevitably they must have been there. But when it happens and that bridge is finally opened for public use, our current President should be known as one of its key architects. This will be a bridge which will undoubtedly transform Southern Africa. How few will be able to claim that they made it happen.
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